In the past three weeks, we’ve seen several promising announcements come from the UK Government about animals used in experiments.
On 19th February, the UK Government announced that in the summer, they would be releasing a plan to accelerate the development and use of non-animal methods to reduce reliance on animal tests. They also announced funding would be doubled for the National Centre for 3Rs (NC3Rs), which works on scientific advances to reduce, refine and – most importantly – replace animal tests.
Then, on 6th March, the Home Office – which is the department responsible for issuing animal testing licences – declared that it would no longer grant permission for licences that use an experiment called the forced swim test in depression experiments.
The Home Office also announced that it wanted to see an end to the test completely eventually and so had written to the Minister for Science, Research and Innovation at the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) and the Chief Executive of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) “to request that they consider what actions they can take to enable a complete ban on the use of the forced swim test in the near future.”
The forced swim test involves putting a rodent in a beaker of water where they are quite literally forced to swim because they have no way to escape, before being removed. The controversial test has been used in experiments to evaluate treatments for depression. It’s long been considered cruel by animal advocates and the scientific community is increasingly turning its back on the method, too. In November 2022, we responded to a call for evidence from the Animals in Science Committee to oppose the continued use of the experiment.
We’re pleased about these new developments, but they are long overdue and could go further. Along with our friends in other animal groups, we’ve been calling for a plan to end animal tests for many years and, whilst it’s positive that funding has been increased for the NC3Rs, the new amount of £20 million is small change in the context of the £12.8 billion of public money that was reportedly spent on research and development in 2021. Time is also running out to deliver on these announcements, as there will be a general election at some point this year.
Nevertheless, we will do all we can to ensure the government keeps these promises for animals in laboratories as it’s definitely a step in the right direction.
Find out more about our animal experiments campaigns here.
